TECHNOLOGIES

Our projects: key figures

Whether our clients cover a town or an entire country, they expect our products to manage all their data and deliver optimum performance.

Graph with over

0

million nodes and arcs

In the field: cables, equipment, and connections. Our engineers see this in terms of a graph: a mathematical object to which powerful algorithms can be applied.

0

measurements made each month using sensors in the field

The Internet of Things is now a reality: lamp-posts, pedestrian crossings, and parking spaces can now communicate! Our products are there to listen – and make it possible to sift through the raw data to identify those objects that require particular attention.

From the site to the product

Need

Our business experts identify our clients’ current and future needs. Our job as software vendors involves providing the best possible answer to those needs, as quickly as possible.

To do this, our developer team uses a method known as Scrum: this is what is known as an agile method, ensuring that we address client needs as appropriately and quickly as possible.

Using this method, every three weeks, our product manager and the developer team prioritise the needs to be covered and decide what the team will do in the next iteration. This allows us to adjust very quickly to our client environments.

Also every three weeks, the developer team delivers a product version incorporating the latest features: this allows us to check that work to date is in line with the initial need.

Development

Our developer team comprises a dozen members with a range of profiles: from students on apprenticeship contracts to architects with twenty years’ experience – all of them contributing their enthusiasm for technology, their sense for a good look & feel, and their business expertise in our products.

The functional richness of our products can be expressed in terms of lines of code:

0

SMARTGEO has 185,000 lines of code, 9,000 of them for the mobile app alone;

0

The NETGEO platform involves 560,000 lines of code.

Quality

Our foremost concern is the quality of our products: it’s the vital condition for client satisfaction.

No single developer can keep an eye on 700,000 lines of code: our software agents do it for us. Each line of code is read to ensure that it complies with all rules and best practices. This quality measurement analysis makes it possible to detect and avoid certain bugs, and helps to ensure the application is maintainable long term.

At the same time, the agents install the version of the product that was altered the previous day and subject it to testing: over 4,000 tests are performed overnight – over four hours’ worth of tests in which functionality, as well as performance, is validated.

Our team includes a full-time quality engineer, in charge of organising these tests.

Acceptance

Helpful as they are, software agents can never replace the expertise of our humans! For each version release, the developer team and the client service team give our products a ‘baptism of fire’ on each of the supported platforms. Every aspect of functionality is tested, every view is checked, and every button is clicked.

In all, over 500 test scenarios must be validated, in addition to over 700 hours of testing.

At the same time, the finishing touches are put to all the deliverables accompanying the product: the changelog, user documentation, administrator documentation, training resources, and so on.

Delivery and training

Once the tests have been completed, the product finally arrives on our shelves: the client service team takes over to distribute the new version to our clients, and help train and assist them.

The challenges ahead

Augmented reality

In the space of just a few years, operators have gone from a set of hardcopy plans to Geographic Information Systems and now, mobile terminals. We’re already dreaming of even more natural interfaces that have an even smaller footprint, and are even more powerful.

How can the Information System best mirror the reality on the ground? How can a technician be shown the entire history of the network on which they are working, without it making their job more difficult? How can they be helped to identify the underground structure they need to repair, even before digging starts?

Big data: transitioning from description to prediction

Our applications already know how to centralise all the data fed back automatically and manually from the field, ranging from intervention reports entered by technicians to measurements recorded by sensors and equipment self-diagnosis.

Better still, our applications make it possible to use this information to make our clients’ work even more effective: a router reports that it is defective; which connections need to be changed to restore subscriber service? The power used by one particular electrical cabinet has just dropped; does this mean one of the lights it powers has just blown?

Why not go even further? How can faults be predicted on the basis of reported data? How can recurring patterns in the use of public facilities be detected, to improve their availability?

Technologies

Our technical partners:

ESRI, the world-leading GIS provider, has become a benchmark for the world of GIS. For over 20 years now, GiSmartware has been developing expertise in ESRI technology, in particular with the ARCGIS platform (e.g.: NETGEO2telecom and NETGEO2water), and by developing its own business-specific software solutions. ESRI France has listed GiSmartware as a certified partner: part of the ESRI PARTNER NETWORK (EPN).

Oracle, a world leader in databases, has deployed its products in over 145 countries worldwide and has 400,000 clients, including the 100 largest American companies. All GiSmartware products are compatible with Oracle databases and use their most advanced features: the spatial cartridge, linear referencing system (LRS) and geocoding engine. This expertise enables GiSmartware clients to benefit from the full potential of the Oracle platform.

Founded in 1990, GeoConcept specialises in the design and production of geographic optimisation technology for professionals. GeoConcept has a proprietary Geographic Information System. The firm has been constantly growing for some twenty years, and now has worldwide recognition. GeoConcept is one of GiSmartware’s privileged partners, focusing particularly on applications for firefighters (hydrant management and atlas publication).